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I haven’t successfully implemented portfolios in my own classroom yet, but after attending a SocialEdCon discussion about e-portfolios here at ISTE, I started thinking about the e-portfolio I created as a final graduation requirement for grad school. It was all wrong, and that’s why I feel no sense of pride or ownership over it. Our college technology programs should be leading the way in creating e-portfolios as they send instructional technologists out into education. Teachers are like everyone else. They need models of good practices in their own education so they can implement those practices in their classrooms. So what was wrong with my portfolio?

I understand that my degree program uses the portfolio to address the Knowledge Base of Instructional Technology standards developed by AECT, but rather than make these domains a part of students’ thinking throughout the degree program, the domains were introduced at the very end of the program, and I felt like I had to retrofit my learning to match the domains. If the domains are so critical, and our learning has been informed by the domains, then I should have been guided by my instructors as I completed the courses to think about how what I was learning fit the domains, and I should have been coached to think about pieces I wanted to include in the portfolio that would reflect my learning in each domain. A portfolio should show learning in progress, and it should not be something students just work on at the end. Saving a portfolio until the end makes it difficult for students to think about and reflect on their learning. I did it because I am a writer and a natural reflector. I just do that. But what about students who need a little help reflecting on their learning? This kind of a portfolio is a wasted opportunity for those students.

I didn’t have a lot of choice. I had to include certain items, sometimes things I wouldn’t have chosen to reflect my learning, because I had stringent criteria. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have criteria for portfolios, but give students choices about how to meet that criteria. As it is, I did manage to sneak in some items that I didn’t even create for school, particularly to fit the development domain, but it would have been nice if I had been offered multiple learning opportunities for other domains. For example, the only item I could really include in my management domain that demonstrated planning, monitoring, and controlling an instructional design project was a time log I kept for my final project and report, and this was a problem that my instructors knew about because they flat out told me to just use the time log for that particular domain. I want choices! I’m not particularly proud of a time log. I’m not sure what it shows about my learning aside from the fact that I can keep track of my hours and create a table in Word. Choice is such an essential part of a portfolio. Giving students ownership over their learning and choices about what they use to demonstrate that learning in a portfolio is critical.

Finally, I didn’t have a lot of choice about the format. I was told I was going to design a website (using Dreamweaver, if I wanted) with a navigation system. I could make it look however I wanted (within my ability to use Dreamweaver or code HTML), but it had to look a certain way. I wouldn’t have been allowed to use a wiki or blog. It had to be a web page I could save and upload to the system my school used to collect assignments. I couldn’t just send a link to a site hosted elsewhere, though there was no restriction against putting the portfolio elsewhere online also, so I did.

You know what? I understand now why I hated that portfolio, even though I usually love that kind of reflection and curation. It was all wrong. That’s not the way to put together a true portfolio of learning. It felt more like a checklist of items so the instructors could say yes, they met the required instructional technology standards. But you know what? They really didn’t meet those standards if they were not introduced to students until the end, and the students themselves didn’t even know what they were or were not thinking for themselves about how to meet them. For a group of folks who say they value instructional design, the way they implemented portfolio learning borders on criminal.

No wonder I dislike my portfolio so much. It’s not much of a reflection of me or my learning. It feels very impersonal, and sometimes when I look at, I don’t even feel like it’s something I created.

I don’t remember learning much about technology integration when I was a preservice teacher, but then that was 1996-1997. We thought we were advanced for using email to communicate with each other. I’m not sure what has changed in the intervening years, if much of anything. I have found, contrary to popular belief, that young teachers do not necessarily know as much about technology as older teachers think they do, nor do younger teachers necessarily naturally integrate technology. (For that matter, I don’t think kids know as much about technology as teachers think they do, at least not using it for school or work, but that’s a separate blog post.)

The key word in instituting technology integration as part of a preservice teaching program is integration. Technology shouldn’t be an add-on, or else preservice teachers will only come to think of it as such in their classrooms. Asking preservice teachers to create lesson plans and assignments for their college courses that integrate technology and then reflect on how that technology might be used in their classrooms might be effective. An e-portfolio would be a great start. preservice teachers could share it with prospective employers. It can be hard sometimes to find a job with no experience, and a great portfolio can encourage administrators to take a chance on first-year teachers if the portfolios show the young teacher to be thoughtful, engaging, organized, and involved in their field. That portfolio should include a blog. When I was a preservice teacher, my classmates and I had to write weekly “think pieces” about an issue we were concerned about. We passed these around in class so that our classmates could be exposed to our ideas, and of course, they were graded by our professors, too. A blog would be a natural forum for such thinking aloud.

Other artifacts that might be included in such a portfolio:

Evidence of understanding good presentation practices. I have seen some horrible PowerPoints in my day (often created by teachers and administrators), and teachers cannot be expected to teach students how to create good presentations if they themselves don’t know how. Presentation skills are a key part of any preservice teacher’s education.

Evidence of having created an online PLN through Twitter or through a group such as the English Companion Ning (or equivalent for subject matter). A link to the Twitter account or biography page should be sufficient.

Evidence of having created a wiki, perhaps as part of a group assignment for the course or perhaps as a repository for lesson plans.

As more teachers are flipping the classroom, I think an important piece of the portfolio should include a lesson delivered via audio, and a lesson delivered via video (could be a screencast). The topics should be well chosen in that they should be topics easily taught and learned via this method.

A link to the preservice teacher’s Diigo profile. I think social shared bookmarking has been one of the most fantastic tools to come along in my fourteen years as a teacher. It’s a quick, useful way to share great resources that can be integrated with both a blog and a Twitter account as well as your browser (depending on which one you use). I happen to prefer Diigo to other bookmarking systems myself, but it’s not the only game in town. Any professors teaching preservice teachers could make that call.

One of the most important things a teacher needs to learn when integrating technology is flexibility. Sometimes things go awry when you’re trying to integrate technology, and it’s important that teachers are able to change course if the technology fails. The Internet sometimes goes down. Sometimes the projector bulb burns out. Lots of things can happen, and it’s important that teachers include, as part of any lesson plan integrating technology, their backup plan for what they will do if the technology fails.

As part of their preservice teaching program, teachers should also learn how to search. Using boolean search strings will save them time and help them find resources they’re looking for quickly. Learning how to use the everyday tools of teaching, including projectors, the Internet, videos, and the like should be an essential part of a preservice teacher’s education.

To steal an idea from Melissa Scott, time to share tools, perhaps a weekly session, would be great. The way I would probably set this up is to ask preservice teachers to sign up for time if they have found a cool tool and then present and demonstrate that tool to their fellow preservice teachers. Before long, teachers would have quite a toolkit to take with them to their first job. Any tools that could more easily be shared via a Diigo group created for the preservice teachers would not necessarily need to be shared via presentation, and there should be an expectation that the preservice teachers will make use of Diigo, contributing shared links and also saving links.

It’s also key that preservice teachers understand the importance of rehearsing technology. Teachers who fiddle with tools they aren’t sure how to use in front of a group of students are wasting time and hurting their credibility. Try out the tools and figure out how they are used before asking students to use them or before using them in front of students. Don’t rely on students to be your tech support when you get stuck, which leads me to my final recommendation: learn basic troubleshooting. Most of the troubleshooting I do for other teachers, they could do themselves if they tried searching for the problem online. That’s the first thing I usually do anyway. I’m happy to help teachers. I don’t mind troubleshooting. However, they could save a lot of time if they learned how to do it themselves. It isn’t the best use of the IT department’s time to restart your computer if it freezes up when that is something teachers themselves could have done much more quickly on their own.

After about a year, I have finally edited my portfolio from the Instructional Technology master’s program at Virginia Tech. I needed to redirect a lot of links in order to make sure everything functioned. Feel free to check it out if you are interested in that sort of thing. A link to it has a permanent home in my left sidebar under Links.

I began really working on my ITMA portfolio yesterday. It seemed like a huge task because I wasn’t really sure what was expected. After I started working on it, I found myself really enjoying it. I liked the freedom to choose artifacts. In choosing documents that illustrate my progress with design, I included my project from Instructional Design, which I am decidedly not proud of, simply because I was proud of subsequent designs in Multimedia Authoring and especially Project and Report. I knew I had learned a lot, and showing that progress was important to me. I am enjoying writing the reflections, too. Once I’ve completed the portfolio sometime later this semester, it will have a permanent home on my website.

Speaking of reflection, I was wondering the other day why writing over at my book blog is giving me so much joy lately. It’s not the conversation, exactly, because aside from a few regulars, I don’t actually receive that many comments over there. I keep meaning to update my education blog, but I think that grad school, coupled with work demands, seems to be sapping so much of my energy lately. And my education blog suffers because I associate it with work. My book blog, on the other hand, I associate with reading and escape from work. So it’s probably no wonder I am feeling more like hanging out over there lately. The upshot is that I graduate this December, and maybe I’ll have more time then. Then again, maybe not. I just have to tell myself that’s it’s really OK if I need a little break. I certainly don’t want this blog to feel like one more thing I have to do.

Related posts:

I’ve written about Tony Danza’s latest project Teach before. The series will begin airing on A&E in October. Playing around with students’ education is not appropriate for a reality show, in my opinion; however, it should be said that Danza seems to “get it” and is not completely without teaching qualifications—his IMDb bio indicates he has a bachelor’s in History Education.

I am finding myself too busy to blog, but you can find me on Twitter most days. Sorry! It will settle down soon. I do potentially graduate from Virginia Tech with my master’s this December. After that, I might actually have time. Yeah, probably not. I’m working on my portfolio right now and feeling a little lost. Sometimes having too much freedom can be as crippling as not having enough.

I knew at some point during the semester, I would be too overwhelmed to blog much, and that point came at the junction of creating the English department budget for next year and keeping up with grad school.

Some things I’m thinking about: assessment and professional development, planning a curriculum map/scope and sequence for my department, and NCTE. Will I see any of you at the conference? I’m looking forward to going.

I am plugging away in my grad school program, but I’m immensely frustrated by one of my classes to the point that I feel I should warn anyone interested in the program about the class. It’s required, and it’s a complete waste of time. It’s outdated, it’s boring busy work, and it’s mostly irrelevant. It’s also the one that I was most looking forward to when I registered. It’s a course on using the Web in education. We have learned nothing, and I mean nothing, about Web 2.0 tools. Several of the assignments have been redundant collections of links on various subjects. When I finally thought I’d learned something in the class — fair use — I quickly learned from my blog commenters that even that lesson was outdated. I was encouraged by one classmate to look at the class as a means to an end, but I admit it bothers me that I paid tuition for it. And I plan to share this information on my course evaluation, too. They MUST get this class, and in some respects, the rest of the program into the 21st century. Why am I reading a book about how we are entering an information age and we need to change how we teach kids that was written in 1993? Nothing more recent has been written on a similar subject that we can use instead? I don’t believe it.

On the plus side, I was able to get a student discount for Adobe Studio 8, which was later replaced by Creative Suite. It comes with Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 3, and Flashpaper 2. I haven’t worked with all of the programs, but I loved Dreamweaver and Fireworks. I know Dreamweaver throws in a lot of code that isn’t necessary when you use it to create Web sites, but it’s so much easier than coding with HTML. I used it to build the shell of the Web site that will be my ITMA portfolio. Most of the pages are placeholders right now except for the home page and résumé, but feel free to watch it for developments! A permanent link is in the sidebar to the left.